Should the Cardinals pursue Prince Fielder?  Why or why not?

The answers:

Daniel, C70 At The Bat :

Not at all, for various reasons.

One, Pujols was a special case. If Albert hadn’t been Albert, there would have been no question that the club should have stopped bidding a long time ago. I believe that the cost for Fielder would quickly get into uncomfortable territory for the Cards and he brings none of the additional cache of “hometown icon” that Pujols did.

Two, first base is covered both short-term and potentially long term. Bob pointed this out on Twitter and hopefully will elaborate here on this answer, but the short response is Lance Berkman is more than capable of playing first, as is Allen Craig when he returns from injury. Factor in players like Matt Adams on the rise and that’s not a slot you have to throw a lot of money at.

Three, while Fielder never rose to the level of Cardinal enemy that Ryan Braun has, I still don’t want to see him in St. Louis. Call it personal bias.

Absolutely not.

I just posted this on our site regarding where the Cards go from here (I post this for reference, not pimping http://www.stlcardinalbaseball.com/how-should-the-cardinals-address-their-needs-without-pujols-in-2012). I believe this is the perfect opportunity for the Cardinals to start stretching their minor league muscles for the first time since before the Jocketty era. I really want to see what the minors can do for this team.

As for Fielder specifically, here are some reasons:

1. He’s morbidly obsese, and has shown an obvious opposition to caring for his body. His father, built the same way, flamed out disastrously beyond age 32, and I think Prince will be the same.

2. He’s going to be expensive in both years and salary. His agent, the infamous Scott Boras, is definitely looking for $20-$25 million for the guy for many years (seven? who knows). Here’s something nobody has been able to answer: if the Cardinals weren’t willing to go high and long with a franchise icon like Pujols, why would they do it for Fielder, who is a LESSER player than Pujols?????

3. Fielder is a one tool player.

4. Fielder’s attitude sucks. His shirt nonsense bugged me years ago, and his cockiness (unearned, in my opinion) is not a trait I’d like to see this team adopt.

5. The Cardinals don’t need to go out and buy a “name” just to make up some of the luster they lost with Pujols. Allen Craig can make up 2/3 of Pujols’ production with a full year, and the rest of the TEAM can produce wins in various ways. Winning teams don’t need names. They need all-round talents playing with heart, skill, and enthusiasm and working together.

How are those for some reasons?

I would love to see Fielder in Cardinal Red. He is young and still have a lot of upside left. I would sign him for maybe four years and would be a bargain compared to Pujols. What a slap in the face that would be if we signed Fielder. I would suggest to bring up Matt Adams so he can learn behind Prince since he seems to be our next first baseman of the future. Prince would also fill that void that Pujols use to be.

I have been debating this with myself since Thursday and I keep making good points on both sides. But in the end, I was able to convince myself. The answer is no. If they could sign up to a short term deal, two years, then I would say yes, but that’s not going to happen. Fielder is a tough player, not playing less than 157 games since 2006, but his dad was done in baseball by 34 years old. I think the Cards need to keep 1st base warm for Matt Adams and fill other spots like SS and an outfield position (maybe, depends on Criag’s return). I like the idea of having a .290/35-40/120+ batter on the team, but in the long run the cost would more than likely be to high.

Ray covered the answer already. I have nothing else to add. That said, the Brewers will really be hurting for those first 50 games next season if the PED test for Braun holds up.

Should the Cardinals pursue Prince Fielder? I suppose it depends on what you mean by “pursue.” Should they inquire? Yes. I’m not a fan of Fielder, for several reasons but all entirely unrelated to his production, of course, and I can’t imagine many other Cardinal fans would be enamored by him either. But I’ll throw in a couple of other considerations that I don’t think anyone has mentioned, just for the sake of a more complete discussion.

First, I’m not sold on Matt Adams as the ultimate answer and therefore reason to forego good current options. Undoubtedly the guy can rake, posting .400ish wOBA every year in the minors. But that’s only through double-A, and it’s a big jump from there to MLB success. Brett Wallace put up those kind of numbers to that point, too, and while the book isn’t closed on Wallace, he isn’t exactly replacing a callup’s win totals yet, not to mention Pujols’s.

Second, a side benefit to signing Fielder would be to keep him off a competitor’s club. The Cubs appear to be the lead candidates to sign him, and while they may not yet worry anyone, they have the wherewithal and leadership to change that quickly. Any home runs that Fielder hits for the Cardinals will be home runs that he doesn’t hit for the Cubs.

Outside of a few hours yesterday, when the Marlins bowed out and the rumors were swirling that the Cardinals actually had the highest offer on the table, I was expecting this.  We all should have expected this.  Baseball players follow the money.  Hell, people in general follow the money.  Beyond family and (sometimes) country, loyalty is a fleeting and transient sentiment.  Albert Pujols does not owe St. Louis anything.  He does not owe Cardinals fans anything.  He certainly does not owe Bill Dewitt Jr. anything.  The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim offered 254 million dollars.  If reported figures are to be believed, that is at least 30 million more than what the Cardinals were willing to give him.  It’s no surprise that he took it.  It’s no surprise that anyone would take it.

I feel like anyone who is genuinely surprised by Pujols’s decision hasn’t been paying attention.  When he demanded an extension rivaling Alex Rodriguez’s record-setting free agent contracts, he wasn’t doing it so he could reinvest the money in the city of St. Louis.  When he refused to negotiate after spring training started, it wasn’t so that John Mozeliak had more time to worry about the amateur draft.  And when he continued to retain Dan Lozano despite the controversy that emerged over the last two months, it wasn’t so that he could work out a deal favorable to the St. Louis Cardinals organization.  This has been a long time coming.  Pujols wanted to get paid.

That said, I don’t blame the Cardinals either.  Matching the Angels’ offer would have been insane.  The offer that the Cardinals made was probably insane.  Emotionally, I wanted to see Pujols stay with the Cardinals and I would have been happy with any deal that made it possible.  But logically, a ten year deal at 20MM+ is a huge risk for any player.  Albert Pujols is going to be 32 when the deal begins.  He will be 41 when it ends.  Not many players–even elite players–age well into their late 30s and early 40s.  There are freaks of nature and/or science like Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Mariano Rivera, and Roger Clemens that play well into their twilight years.  But there are many players like Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Tejada, Larry Walker, Mark McGwire, Pedro Martinez, and others who see their incredible talent ravaged by injury and time.  There is no way to know what will happen to Pujols, but we all saw proof of his mortality in 2011.  I don’t begrudge the Cardinals for not going higher.

I do, however, wish that the Cardinals had negotiated better.  There’s no way to know the full story behind their plans and machinations.  I can only see what the media shows me.  But I saw a front office that, for whatever reason, was deceived by the same expectations as the fans who now lash out at Pujols.  It looked like they expected him to sign, they expected him to be polite, and they expected him to want to return above all else.  Pujols came into free agency looking for a battle.  Mozeliak arrived looking for a handshake.

From the beginning of the offseason, the Cardinals gladly handed over every bit of leverage to Pujols and Lozano.  They didn’t change their offer until late in the game.  They never gave any deadlines.  They outright denied any interest in free agents who could have competed with Pujols for the Cardinals money.  Pujols knew that the Cardinals weren’t going anywhere.  They weren’t going to snap up Jose Reyes or Prince Fielder and leave him with one less suitor.  He could take his time and wait for some team to finally snap and offer him the mind-boggling sum he thought he could get.  And if he didn’t get it?  Unlike the Marlins offer, the Cards ~9/200MM wasn’t going anywhere.

Do I think anything would have happened differently if the Cardinals were aggressive?  If they made a competitive offer to Fielder, or at least pretended that they were considering it?  If they told Pujols that they needed a decision Tuesday night then pulled their offer?  Probably not.  Almost certainly not.  But it would have been nice to see the Cardinals front office approach the negotiations with an attitude and tenacity that matched Pujols and Lozano.  Like I said before, Pujols didn’t owe the Cardinals a hometown discount.  But the Cardinals didn’t owe Pujols anything either.  They didn’t have to announce to the world that they were not pursuing Fielder or Reyes before negotiations even began.

Now it’s over.  The Cardinals will move on.  Pujols will move on.  I’ll probably cheer for the Angels in the AL now because Albert is still one of my favorite players.  I hope he has a great career in Anaheim that proves all the doubters wrong.  I hope he retires the home run champion and sails into the Hall of Fame with a Cardinal on his cap.

I also hope the Cardinals sign Prince Fielder or Carlos Beltran and crush the Angels in the World Series in 2012.

Perhaps this didn’t come as a huge surprise to a lot of people.  Matheny was a well-respected leader on the team many years ago. He was hard-nosed and competitive.   Even then, there was talk that he would make a good coach or manager some day.  But on closer examination, it was a little unusual.

Matheny hasn’t been a manager in the minors, like Ryne Sandberg, Chris Maloney, or even Joe McEwing.  He hasn’t been a coach with the current Cards club like Jose Oquendo or Joe Pettini.  And he certainly doesn’t have the big league pedigree of Terry Francona or Joe Maddon.

Matheny’s coaching experience, as far as I know, is limited to a few years as a spring training instructor and a series of videos for Protege Sports.  Does that mean he’d be a bad manager?  Of course not.  I’m actually an advocate of signing an inexperienced manager because someone without a history is going to cost less.  And I don’t think that the manager is terribly important.  As long as he gets along with his players and doesn’t make too many horrible mistakes, he probably has less effect on the success of the team than the backup catcher or mopup reliever.  There’s no reason to break the bank on a manager.

I’m in a pretty small minority with that viewpoint, however.  So it was a bit unusual to me that the Cardinals, fresh off a WS victory, would consider replacing a high profile manager like La Russa with a complete rookie.  I didn’t think too much about it, though.  I honestly thought that they were interviewing Matheny as a courtesy or a curiosity.  At that point, I assumed that Oquendo, Sandberg, and Francona were the real candidates.

Then STLtoday featured an article which detailed Matheny’s interview with the Cards.  This piece highlighted his positive attributes, addressed his lack of experience, and was quick to point out Matheny’s bonds with Dave Duncan, Yadier Molina, and of course Albert Pujols.

Once again, this was only slightly unusual at the time.  But now, almost a week later, there haven’t been any similar articles about the other candidates.  There have, however, been stories considering the merit of hiring an inexperienced manager as well as a Bernie Miklasz article contemplating Matheny as a potential choice.

If you’re as cynical as me, you realize that STLtoday might be floating a trial balloon.  They might be preparing Cardinals fans for what they already know or suspect: Mike Matheny is the frontrunner to replace Tony La Russa.  We’ve certainly seen it before.  Rasmus’s departure came on the heels of various stories about his difficulty with the Cardinals coaching staff.  McGwire was floated as a potential hitting coach in the news before he was hired.  Are we seeing that same thing now?  And why?

Why Matheny?  Why would the Cardinals–who have spent the last 16 years demonstrating that they value the position of manager far too much–hire a completely inexperienced skipper?

Two possibilities come to mind:

1. This may be an unfortunate response to a crisis of leadership.  The Cardinals have been Tony La Russa’s team for so long that they might not know how to live without him.  Perhaps they hope to keep his reign alive as long as possible by hiring a figurehead manager, and allowing Duncan and McGwire to make the real calls.  This isn’t a particularly flattering analysis for Matheny, but it is something that should be considered.  Matheny is a blank slate, and perhaps the Cardinals want to shape his future with the help of La Russa’s old coaches.

Of course, if this was the goal, why not hire Joe Pettini?  He’s filled in for La Russa numerous times.  He probably knows La Russa’s style better than anyone but Duncan.  He’d be the natural fit if you wanted to ensure maximum continuity.  Which leaves me with…

2. This is Mozeliak’s power play.  And it’s really goddamn interesting.  When Walt Jocketty was dismissed following the 2007 season and replaced with Jon Mozeliak, I assumed the new GM was nothing but a puppet for Tony La Russa.  Jocketty left over disputes with management.  Mozeliak was an org team player.  Throughout his time with the Cardinals, he’s been at La Russa’s beck and call.  He traded Brendan Ryan and Colby Rasmus.  He acquired Matt Holliday, Ryan Theriot and Lance Berkman.  The media made no attempts to conceal where these moves truly originated.  La Russa wanted these players (or he wanted them gone) and Mozeliak made it happen.

Now La Russa’s gone.  There’s a power vacuum.  And I think this is a surprising move from Mozeliak to come out of the shadows and establish that he’s no longer just an apparatus of a larger-than-life manager.

How do I figure this?  A little tidbit that has come out into the public  eye since this search began.  Mike Matheny has been working for Mozeliak, in the GM’s office, for the last year or so.  Think about this quote from the above-mentioned Miklasz article:

“He’s also served as an adviser to Mozeliak. An unofficial assistant GM, if you will.”

Interesting, right?  Pettini and Oquendo are acolytes of La Russa.  They worked on the field with him.  McEwing and Sandberg are managerial prospects from the White Sox and Phillies, respectively.  Terry Francona would bring his own people in.  But Mike Matheny?  He’s been working with Mozeliak.

There is still no predicting who will be the Cards’ manager in a few days.  But I think that Matheny’s sudden ascension to front-runner shows that Mozeliak is ready to make the Cardinals his team.  For better or worse.

This move leaves me with a lot of mixed feelings.  Sometimes I like La Russa.  Sometimes I hate him.  Even when he’s winning, he can be infuriating.  Even when he’s losing, he can be fascinating.  No other manager sticks Skip Schumaker at second base, then leaves him there even after he’s proven he can’t play the position.  But, then again, no other manager is willing to try batting the pitcher eighth.  I still think that’s a good idea.

No matter how I feel about La Russa at the moment, there is no denying that he shaped the face of the St. Louis Cardinals.  For better and for worse.

He took over as manager in 1996.  That was back when Bill Clinton was campaigning for a second term, the Macarena was a hit song, and Hailee Steinfeld–the actress who played Mattie in 2010′s “True Grit”–wasn’t even born.

La Russa took the team from the fading embers of the contact-and-speed Ozzie Smith era to the electrifying tape-measure Mark McGwire era.  It wasn’t a graceful transition, and ended up alienating Smith as well as a legion of Cardinals fans.  There are still those who, to this day, yearn for the slaps and steals of Whiteyball.

La Russa guided the team through the days of the MV3: Pujols, Edmonds, and Rolen.  But he also broke up the band.  His bizarre feud with Scott Rolen cast a dark shadow over what should have been a pleasant run at a title repeat in 2007.

The next few years were rough, but La Russa remained as the Cardinals built a new sort of team.  Pujols remained, but instead of being surrounded with elite hitters, he was paired with a couple of aces.  Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright were not always healthy at the same time.  But when they were, they made the Cardinals a team to be feared.

And now the Pujols years may be coming to an end.  It’s too soon to be sure, but there’s a fair chance that next season is an entirely new beginning.  If so, Tony La Russa took us all the way from the end of Whiteyball to the end of the Pujolsball.  That’s sixteen years.

It’s almost impossible to judge the skill of a manager.  There are too many factors.  If we want to be traditional–look to wins, postseason appearances, and titles–La Russa may be the best manager the Cardinals have ever had.  In his sixteen years, the Cardinals made the postseason nine times.  They went to three World Series.  They won two of them.  Only a Yankees fan could find those results unacceptable.

Of course, La Russa was gifted with incredibly talented players during his time with the Cardinals.  Lankford, McGwire, Drew, Edmonds, Pujols, Kile, Rolen, Carpenter, Wainwright, Holliday, Berkman…  Just to name the standouts.   La Russa also had the benefit of the best pitching coach in baseball.  I’m not sure Dave Duncan isn’t the one really responsible for La Russa’s success in St. Louis.  There is no one like him and I suspect he will be missed even more than Tony in 2012.

Considering the folks surrounding La Russa, it’s damn near impossible to give him full credit for everything he did for the Cardinals.  But he shouldn’t be overlooked.  Chances are, La Russa had a finger in acquiring many of the players I listed above.  He was more than just a manager.  He exerted control over the team far beyond the confines of the dugout.

That was part of the reason Walt Jocketty–another talented person who lent his skill to La Russa’s legacy–left in 2007.  The Cardinals weren’t his team.  They were Tony’s team.  And they were handed over to John Mozeliak.  Outside of the surprising Chris Duncan trade, Mozeliak has largely been seen as an apparatus of La Russa’s influence.

When La Russa wanted Matt Holliday, Mozeliak got Matt Holliday.  When La Russa wanted Brendan Ryan gone, Brendan Ryan was gone.  After Tony expressed a desire to improve the “character” of the clubhouse, Mozeliak brought in Ryan Theriot, Lance Berkman, and Nick Punto.  When Colby Rasmus wore out his welcome, he was shipped off for veteran pitching depth.

Things are going to change now.  Tony La Russa is no longer in charge.  What does that mean?  Is that good?  Is it bad?  I don’t have the answer for that.  When you look at the decisions La Russa made–and the fact that he was being paid millions to make them–it’s hard not to think the team is better off without him.  But when you look at his tenure in St. Louis–the years between 1996 and today– it was, overall, an amazing time to be a Cardinals fan.

I often disagreed with Tony La Russa.  I often hated his decisions. I often wanted him gone. But the Tony La Russa era was far more than the sum of its parts.  It’s very possible that I will never see a more prosperous stretch of Cardinal baseball.

So I want to thank Tony La Russa for the last sixteen years.  I don’t know if he’s responsible for any of it.  But I also don’t know if that matters anymore.

Instead, I want to talk about a specific player.  I’m not sure I’ve ever spent much time on this blog discussing Chris Carpenter and that’s a damn shame.  David Freese might be getting all the headlines.  He was rightfully the NLCS and WS MVP.  His incredible and improbable postseason cannot be ignored.  But Chris Carpenter is the reason the St. Louis Cardinals are World Champs.

Before tonight, the Cardinals had already faced three must-win games.  Game 162 of the regular season.  Game 5 of the NLDS.  Game 6 of the World Series.  Chris Carpenter threw complete game shutouts in two of these games.  That’s why no sane Cardinal fan questioned who would pitch Game 7 of the World Series.  Carpenter wasn’t sharp on three days rest before, but that didn’t matter.  You don’t fall behind in Game 7 with Chris Carpenter sitting in the bullpen.

I’ll admit, there were several times I thought Carpenter should have been pulled.  I wanted Lohse to warm up in the first inning after the Rangers jumped on Carpenter’s flagging fastball and hanging curves.  I thought he should have been pulled for a pinch hitter in the fourth inning when the Cardinals had two runners in scoring position.  I wasn’t sure he should have started the top of the sixth.  I certainly threw a fit when he batted for himself to lead off the bottom of the sixth.  He looked gassed the entire game.  He looked sore and broken; I was just waiting for the Rangers potent lineup to get to him.

They didn’t.

After the NLCS, we learned that Carpenter was beginning to feel elbow soreness and there were questions about his availability for game 1 of the World Series.  Carpenter denied that anything was wrong.  But anyone who pays close attention knew the truth.  Chris Carpenter is 36 years old.  He’s had so many arm surgeries that the next one is free.  He threw for more innings than anyone in the National League.  The speed and movement on his pitches were down from his shutout against Philadelphia.  He was laboring.

Even then, he started game 1.  He started game 5.  And thanks to a postponement, he started game 7.  He pitched nineteen innings in ten days.  It didn’t matter that his arm was hurting.  It didn’t matter that he was aging or that his arm was held together with various ligaments from various other parts of his body.  He kept going.  He kept pitching.

I would not be surprised to find out that Chris Carpenter was playing through a serious injury. But this isn’t supposed to be a pessimistic post.  Right now is no time to worry about what might be revealed by some MRI in the future.  That’s not the point of this.  The point is that we should all appreciate what Chris Carpenter did.

At age 36
After shoulder surgery,  Tommy John surgery, and a tear in his oblique
After throwing the most innings in the NL
After throwing the most innings in his career
After starting two games in the World Series already
On three days rest
With a sore arm
With sketchy command and a weak curveball…

Chris Carpenter held the potent Texas Rangers to two runs in six innings and won game seven of the World Series.

This should not be forgotten, no matter how compelling David Freese’s RBIs and Albert Pujols’s impending free agency might be.

Tonight I watched the St. Louis Cardinals make a series of awful decisions that cost them the lead in the World Series.  And it sucked.

Earlier this evening, I made a very quick post about Mike Napoli’s stats versus righthanded and lefthanded pitchers.  It was brief, and I only made it because I couldn’t fit my point into a single tweet.  Basically, Napoli’s had a strong platoon split for his entire career.  He hits righthanders fine, but he crushes lefties.  This season especially, he’s been one of the best hitters in baseball against lefthanded pitching.  Leaving in noted lefty Marc Rzepczynski to face Napoli with the bases loaded was painfully foolish.  It’s reminiscent of allowing Lohse to face Howard in game 1 against the Phillies.  La Russa loves matchups, and he’s been manipulating them like crazy throughout the playoffs.  Here, he sat in the dugout and watched as a mediocre lefty faced a batter who eats lefties for breakfast.  The result was predictable.  4-2 Rangers.

If only that was all we saw tonight.  Instead, we also witnessed Ryan Theriot pinch-bunt.  Bunting isn’t a great move in general.  There are few situations where it improves the chances of scoring a run.  Most of those situations involve a pitcher at the plate.  There’s no reason to insert a player into the lineup specifically to bunt.  That’s insane.  I thought about citing statistics to prove how insane that is.  I don’t think that’s necessary.  The insanity is self-evident.  And I wish it was the most insane thing we saw.

No, the most insane move of the night was bringing Lance Lynn into the game to intentionally walk Ian Kinsler.  This was the calling card of the catastrophe.  It was how we all know that something was truly wrong.  There’s no explaining it.  Bringing in a pitcher, issuing an intentional walk, then pulling that pitcher should never happen.  Never.  I can contrive an elaborate situation to justify almost any managerial move–even the pinch bunt.  Not this one.  Clearly, the Cardinals management was lost in one of the most important games of the year.

Then to top it all off, in the top of the ninth the Cardinals send Allen Craig while Pujols (who can hit the ball a long way) is batting and Neftali Feliz (who can barely find the strike zone) is pitching.  It wasn’t just predictable that Albert would swing at a ball out of the zone and Craig, slow as his tortoise, would be thrown out at 2b.  It was damn near fated.  Craig can’t run.  Feliz is probably one of half a dozen pitchers in baseball  that Pujols can’t be trusted to make contact with.  Why?  Why hit and run there?  Craig crossing the plate doesn’t win the game for the Cards.  It doesn’t even tie the game.  The only reason to hit and run is to prevent the double play.  DPs have been a problem for the Cards, but consider this:

Albert Pujols has struck out 704 times in his career.  He’s only hit into 232 double plays.  That’s actually a lot of double plays and not that many strikeouts.  But the K is STILL far more likely than the GIDP.

Neftali Feliz has struck out 164 batters in his career.  He’s allowed 150 ground balls.  That’s right, Feliz is more likely to strike out a hitter than allow him to make contact and produce a ground ball.

There’s no reason to just expect a DP.  There’s no reason AT ALL to hit and run.

After the game, the excuses came fast and furious.  There was something wrong with the bullpen phone.  Albert himself put on the hit-and-run.  The speed at which this team covers for Tony La Russa is phenomenal.  If Allen Craig could run as fast as the Cards spin their failures, the team would be coming home up 3-2.

I really don’t know what else to say about what we saw in game 5.  It was atrocious.  It was like watching a car accident, except car accidents are usually over much quicker.

One week ago, the entirety of sports media was fawning over La Russa’s brilliance.  I wonder how many of those same writers dare question him after tonight?

Mike Napoli versus lefthanders in his career: .294/.400/.555

Mike Napoli also has the 10th best OPS in the majors this year against lefties.

Before the season even began, Adam Wainwright heard the three words that every pitcher fears: Tommy John Surgery.  The Cardinals best pitcher was out for the season.  He would be replaced in the rotation with middle reliever Kyle McClellan.  An aging Chris Carpenter and a still-green Jaime Garcia would become the anchors in an increasingly unstable rotation.

Brendan Ryan, perhaps the best defensive shortstop the Cardinals have seen since Ozzie Smith, was shipped out due to issues with management.  He was replaced by Ryan Theriot, who could only theoretically still play the position.  For the first month of the season, the team clung to washed-up closer Ryan Franklin, who did his best to hasten his own retirement.

Everything seemed lost.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

One month ago, the Cardinals were 10.5 games out of first place.  Fans and columnists wondered if the team should start thinking about the wildcard.    Even that seemed silly.  Atlanta and San Francisco were in the way. The bullpen was unstable as ever.  Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman were out so often they barely played in the same game.   Jaime Garcia was faltering and barely looked like the same pitcher who carried the team early in the season.

Four days ago, we were supposed to watch Albert Pujols’s last home game as a Cardinal.  Maybe he would re-sign but with the numbers being floated around, there was no reason to hope.  Maybe they’d pull it out and catch up to the Braves, but it wasn’t likely.  The fans at Busch gave him a proper send off, letting him know how much they appreciated the decade he spent wearing the birds on the bat.  It was over.  We all knew it, one way or another.  Even if we were hopeful, we feared the worst.  We suspected the worst.  The Cardinals were done.  Pujols was done.  This was the end of an era.  Right?

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

But it did.

I haven’t posted in over two months.  There are reasons for that.

Some of my reasons are good: I was in the process of studying for, then taking, and finally agonizing over the bar exam.  I was also writing a novel.  Posting my thoughts about baseball on the internet took a back seat to other things.  It’s really too bad, as there have been so much drama and intrigue over the last few months.  The Colby Rasmus trade alone, along with the performance of the involved players after the move, would have given me plenty to write about.

Some of my reasons are bad: I haven’t been following the team as much as I did earlier in the season.  It’s been forever since I’ve paid this little attention to a Cardinals team.  I’ve been distracted, but it’s been more than that.  Up until this month, the Cardinals have been a frustrating mess that I simply couldn’t deal with.  Because of this, I felt rather unqualified to make any intelligent observations about them.

I’ve been watching over the last few weeks, however, and I’ve seen a Cardinals team with a new lease on life.  Over the season, they have turned victory into defeat.  Tonight, they turned defeat into victory.  That’s been this year in a nutshell.

No matter what happens, the comeback to tie for the wild card was amazing.  But, at the same time, it is something of a disappointment.

The fact that the Cardinals managed to get this far only underscores everything that went wrong.  Where would this team be with a healthy Adam Wainwright?  Where would they be if not for the persistent, random injuries to Matt Holliday?

And where would they be if not for some atrocious management early in the season?  One game is one game, and the Cardinals gave away several games this season.  If not for Tony La Russa’s fanatical devotion to Ryan Franklin, game 162 might just be a tune-up for the playoffs.  If not for a mind-boggling infield of Ryan Theriot and Skip Schumaker behind a groundball pitching staff for half the season, many of us Cardinals fans would already have our NLDS tickets in hand.

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.  The Cardinals deserve to be in the playoffs.  The Cardinals front office and management staff…maybe not so much.  But it doesn’t matter.  It’s almost like a whole new season.  One day, two games, and everything will be decided.

Or not.  If the Cardinals and Braves both win or lose, we’ll see game 163.  Wouldn’t that be something?

Hurler and slugger, ace and masher, closer and bunter, mop-up man and clean-up hitter, in a word, pitcher and batter, stand in opposition to one another.  They carry on a fight, hidden and in the open, a fight that each time ends with quick resolution in only three outs or common ruin writ large across the bases and scoreboard.

In the previous epoch of baseball, we found almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of ephemeral factors which were believed to have led to a significant increase in offensive production across the league.  Off the field, we had focused weight training, performance enhancing drugs, and advanced medical procedures.  On the field, we had shrinking strike zones, body armor, maple bats, and pitch counts.

The modern era of deflated WHIP and OPS that has sprouted from the ruins of the offensive explosion has not done away with baseball antagonism.  It has established new villains and heroes, new conditions of domination, new forms of at-bats in place of the old ones.

The aggregate ERA of the league has dropped to a meager 3.86, down from the halcyon days of 4.32 in 2009 and 2008.  Slugging percentage, the lifeblood of the hard-working designated hitter, has fallen in two years from .418 to .390.

This new revolution was brought about with a tool of insidious quietude, the creeping rise of K/BB rate.  In the long-past days of the offensive explosion, the league K/BB rate hovered comfortably around 2.00.   In 1999/2000, perhaps the zenith of the hitters’ epoch, K/BB dipped into the 1.7s.  Unsurprisingly, ERA rose into the 4.7s.   Today, in these dark times, the league K/BB is an uncharacteristically high 2.16.  But where did this come from?

The circulation of baseballs over home plate is the starting point of strikeouts.  The throwing of baseballs, and the more developed form called “pitching” create the historical groundwork from which this era of strikeouts arises.  The modern history of strikeouts dates from their creation in the 19th century, in a world which slowly came to embrace pitching.  Firstly, a third strike could be thrown over the plate and not swung at, resulting in an out.  Hurlers were allowed to throw overhand.  Batters could no longer specify whether they wanted the ball low or high.  The development of the strikeout led to a dramatic change in baseball related transactions between pitcher and batter

To generalize, there are two sorts of transaction between the pitcher and the batter.  The simplest form of circulating baseballs is known as “pitching to contact”, in which the objective is to induce the batter to strike the ball with the bat in the hope that such striking will be ineffective and render the ball directly to the pitcher’s teammates.  This transaction can be simplified into the following pitch sequence, in which B represents pitches outside of the strike zone, K pitches within, and H the intended contact: B-K-B-K-H.  The pitcher uses balls and strikes to set up the batter in order to force him to swing and make contact.  When the batter strikes the baseball, both the batter and pitcher are placed in equal positions as described by the terms of BAbip.  Therefore, pitching to contact places both participants on even footing.  This is not only the most egalitarian form of circulating baseballs, but also the original, as intended before even the called-strike rule was implemented in the 1850s.

Alongside this form of pitching, we find another specifically different form: K-B-K-B-K.  This is simplified from the actual form that real-world pitching takes, but it exemplifies the desired effect.  The pitcher begins with a strike, then pitches a ball, and eventually converts his pitches into a strikeout.

Both forms are resolvable into the same antithetical phases: K-B, an attempt to force the batter into swinging at a bad pitch, and B-K, an attempt to placate the batter into taking a good pitch.  In both of these phases the same elements–a ball and a strike–and the same baseball dramatis personae–pitcher and batter–confront each other.  Each form unifies these phases, but one reconciles them in a balanced outcome: “H”, or contact with the baseball.

What distinguishes the two forms is the manner in which they are resolved.  The simple act of pitching to contact begins with a pitch and ends with a ball in play.  The majority of balls in play, as evidenced by a league-wide BAbip of .300, turn into outs.  Meanwhile, short of a walk, the only method for  a batter to reach base is to put the ball in play.  Therefore contact is a mutually desired outcome.

The ciruit K-B-K-B-K, on the contrary, begins with a strike and ends with a strike.  The strikeout is the leading motive of the pitcher, and the goal that attracts the repetition of strikes.   The strikeout brings another batter to the plate, without involving the prior hitter or any fielder, and allows another strikeout to take place immediately subsequent.  The circulation of strikeouts has no limits, other than the 27 standard outs which constrain the game of baseball.

The pitcher who throws strikeouts therefor becomes the strikeout pitcher.  His person, or rather his arm, becomes the point from which strikes begin and strikeouts return.  With every strike he throws, whether fooling the batter over the plate or inducing him to swing against the wind, his sole objective becomes the expansion of his K/BB rate.  The restless, never-ending process of striking out batter after batter is his aim.  The circulation of the baseball becomes an independant process, devoid of input from the batter.

But if strikeouts beget strikeouts, where does the value in pitching come from?  A cursory glance at baseball-reference or fangraphs tells us that pitching has value, whether it is represented in WAR or VORP or WPA.  Quite simply, this value is extracted from the batters themselves: from their effort to reach the ball or incorrectly discern its outward dive.  Even in these flashes of futility, the batter provides a modicum of labor.  This labor is converted into value for the pitcher and the batter is left with nothing, neither the fruit of his effort or even the lop-sided roll of the BAbip dice.

But what is to be done?  If the reign of the hitter has been replaced by the tyranny of the pitcher via the conversion of bat-labor into strikeout value, is there any hope for the beleaguered batsman?

The hitters must use their strength and supremacy to wrest all strikeouts from the pitchers.  They must follow in the path of Jose Bautista,  the leader of the vanguard which intends to seize the means of (run) production from the oppressive regime of the pitching elite.  He does not fear the power of the strikeout and the imbalance inherent within the circulation of baseballs.  With 20 HR and a .500 OBP in these trying times, Bautista is a model for future revolutionaries.

In the footsteps of Bautista the hitters will, by means of revolution, make themselves the ruling class once more, sweep away the conditions of strikeouts, and eliminate the current state of batter/pitcher antagonism.  The K/BB rate will drop to 2.00 (or perhaps lower) and the era of the unfettered home run and base hit will begin anew.

Working Hitters of All Teams, Unite!